Various entitles are building the technology and capability to offer seamless, secure roaming of wireless devices between different types of wireless networks including wireless LAN, cellular, private mobile radio, and satellite networks. For example, it is possible to have access to critical business data at all times, moving from location to location, while roaming over different types of networks using different types of wireless devices.
Currently, a wireless gateway automatically detects the most appropriate wireless network at any given time, and is capable of switching between networks without the need to restart the device or the application. Such roaming capability enables, for example, a business person located at home to be able to access data from the office using a mobile device (e.g., PDA) coupled to their home wireless LAN network. Alternatively, after leaving the home and moving out of range of the wireless LAN network, the device automatically switches over to a cellular network. Upon entering the office or a customer location, the device can then switch over to a higher speed wired or wireless LAN. In each of the abovementioned roaming techniques, the end-user utilizes the same computer device, which roams between networks.
Further, the current roaming capabilities of wireless networks are able to recognize the most appropriate time and network to transfer large amounts of data between a mobile device and back-end systems. This ability helps avoid the use of more costly, slower speed cellular networks, for example, during instances where large amounts of data transfers can wait for a less expensive, higher bandwidth Wi-Fi or wireless LAN network. Thus, today's roaming capabilities allow data to be accessed regardless of the wireless network that is available at a given location.
Although a user of a mobile device is able to roam between networks, the current technology does not allow for a user of a mobile device to switch over between different end-user terminals, while maintaining a current session. That is, if a user establishes a service session for information with a first end-user terminal and seeks to transfer this session to different end-user terminal, illustratively at a different location, the end-user must first terminate the initial session at the first terminal, and then reconnect via a second session at the second end-user terminal to continue with a service or application.
For example, an end-user may be playing a video game over the internet, which was established at a first computer terminal in the user's home. The user may wish to continue playing the same game without ending the game at a different location (e.g., the airport). To do so, the end-user must first terminate the current session at the first computer terminal (e.g., laptop computer device) at the user's home, and then must re-establish a new session at a computer device (e.g., PDA) located at the airport. If the user ends the session during the middle of the game, in many instances, the user will have to restart a new game without being able to continue with the same session where the user left off at the first computer terminal. Accordingly, there is a need in the art to perform a seamless switchover of a session between different end user terminals without having to establish a new session at the second end-user terminal.